Jake, where ya been?

He attended the Idaho Celebrity Alzheimer's Benefit in his native state on Saturday and answered a few questions from the Idaho Statesman newspaper.

Now, long after announcing his retirement when the Bucs acquired his rights in a trade with the Broncos in March, football still sounds like it's a long way from Plummer's mind.

"I have a little bit of time on my hands," he said. "I'm filling it up with things I want to do, not things I have to do."

He still hasn't officially informed the league of his decision to retire (he must send an official letter to the commissioner's office) but Plummer said he already has closed the book on the last chapter of his life.

"Everything I would need to play again," he said, "I hung 'em all up in a box in storage."

Leaving the game when he has his health also seems important. "I want to be able to play golf when I'm 55. Heck, I want to play when I'm 40."

Of course, Plummer can say all the right things for now, but there's still that little matter of the approximately $7-million the Bucs could attempt to recover from Plummer -- a prorated amount of the guaranteed money he received after signing his last contract. He still has the right to report for training camp in the fall, at which point the Bucs would have to pay him his $5.3-million salary or release him.

But at this point, with training camp less than two months away, you have to wonder whether Plummer could do the Bucs any good. Who knows if he's in football shape. And it certainly doesn't sound like he wants to play football, even if he could.

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